The Celebrity Archaeology Podcast

PODCAST EPISODE 39 - Roy Scheider

﻿Roy Richard Scheider (November 10,
1932, was an American actor and amateur boxer. Scheider gained fame
for his leading and supporting roles in several iconic films from
the 1970s, playing NYPD Detective Buddy "Cloudy" Russo in The
French Connection (1971); NYPD Detective Buddy Manucci in The Seven
Ups (1973); Police Chief Martin C. Brody in Jaws (1975) and Jaws 2
(1978); Doc in Marathon Man (1976); choreographer and film director
Joe Gideon (whose character was based on Bob Fosse) in All That
Jazz (which was written and directed by Fosse) (1979); and Dr.
Heywood R. Floyd in the 1984 film 2010, the sequel to 2001: A Space
Odyssey. Scheider is also known for
playing Captain Nathan Bridger in the science fiction television
series seaQuest DSV (1993–1996). Described by AllMovie as "one of
the most unique and distinguished of all Hollywood actors",
Scheider was nominated for two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award
and a BAFTA Award. Early life Scheider was born in Orange, New
Jersey, the son of Anna and auto mechanic Roy Bernhard Scheider.
Scheider's mother was of Irish descent with an Irish Catholic
background, while his father was a Protestant German American. As a
child, Scheider was an athlete, participating in organized baseball
and boxing competitions, for which he was classed as a
welterweight, weighing in at 140 lbs. Scheider competed in the
Diamond Gloves Boxing Tournament in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He
attended Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, graduating
in 1950, and was inducted into the school's hall of fame in 1985.
He traded his boxing gloves for the stage, studying drama at both
Rutgers University and Franklin and Marshall College, where he was
a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. Amateur boxing Between 1946
and 1949, Scheider boxed as an amateur in New Jersey. Scheider said
in a television interview in the 1980s that he took up boxing to
lose weight. He said he had no desire to fight, but that his
trainer, Georgie Ward, encouraged him to compete. In his second
bout, at the 1946 Diamond Gloves Tournament (Golden Gloves),
Scheider suffered a broken nose and lost by technical knockout in
two rounds to Myron Greenberg. He went on, however, to post an 8–1
record with 6 knockouts, reversing the defeat to Greenberg in
the process. Military service Scheider served three years in the
United States Air Force as a First lieutenant in Air Operations
from 1955 to 1958. He then became a reservist Captain in the Air
Force Reserve Command until 1964. Acting career Scheider appeared
with the New York Shakespeare Festival, and won an Obie Award in
1968. On television, Scheider played running roles on two CBS soap
operas, Love of Life and The Secret Storm, and also played
character roles in episodes of Coronet Blue and N.Y.P.D. Scheider's
first film role was in the 1964 horror film The Curse of the Living
Corpse. (He was billed as "Roy R. Scheider"). In 1971, he appeared
in two highly popular films, Klute and The French Connection; the
latter, in which he played a fictionalized version of New York City
detective Sonny Grosso, gained him an Oscar nomination for Best
Supporting Actor. His first starring role came in 1973 in The
Seven-Ups, a quasi-follow-up to The French Connection, in which
Scheider's character is once again based on Grosso. Two years
later, he portrayed Chief Martin Brody in the 1975 Hollywood
blockbuster Jaws which also starred Robert Shaw and Richard
Dreyfuss. Scheider's famous movie line, "You're gonna need a bigger
boat", ad-libbed by Scheider,[10] was voted 35th on the
American Film Institute's list of best movie quotes. In 1976, he
appeared as secret agent Doc Levy in Marathon Man, with Dustin
Hoffman and Laurence Olivier. Scheider reunited with French
Connection director William Friedkin in Sorcerer, a remake of the
1953 French film Le Salaire de la Peur (The Wages of Fear). He was
originally cast in The Deer Hunter, the second movie of a
three-movie deal with Universal Studios. However, despite being
under contract, Scheider dropped out two weeks before the start of
filming. Universal offered him the option of reprising his role as
Martin Brody for a Jaws sequel, and would consider his contractual
obligations fulfilled if he accepted. Scheider accepted, and Jaws 2
was released in 1978. In 1979, he received his second Academy Award
nomination, this time as Best Actor in All That Jazz, in which he
played a fictionalized version of the film's director and co-writer
Bob Fosse. In 1983, he starred in Blue Thunder, a John Badham film
about a fictitious technologically advanced prototype attack
helicopter which provided security over the city of Los Angeles
during the 1984 Summer Olympic Games. This was followed by a role
as Dr. Heywood Floyd in Peter Hyams' 2010, a 1984 sequel to Stanley
Kubrick's 1968 science fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, in
which William Sylvester originated the role of Floyd. One of his
later parts was that of Dr. Benway in the 1991 film adaptation of
William S. Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch. In 1990 he co-starred with
Sean Connery in The Russia House as the smart-talking CIA liaison
with MI6. Scheider played a mob boss in the Gary Oldman crime film
Romeo Is Bleeding (1994) and a chief executive of a corrupt
insurance company cross-examined by Matt Damon's character in
1997's John Grisham's The Rainmaker, directed by Francis Ford
Coppola. Scheider was lead star in the Steven Spielberg-produced
television series SeaQuest DSV as Captain Nathan Bridger. During
the second season, Scheider voiced disdain for the direction in
which the series was heading. His comments were highly publicized,
and the media criticized him for panning his own show. NBC made
additional casting and writing changes in the third season, and
Scheider decided to leave the show. His contract, however, required
that he make several guest appearances that season. In 2007,
Scheider received one of two annually-presented Lifetime
Achievement Awards at the SunDeis Film Festival in Waltham,
Massachusetts. Personal life Scheider's first marriage was to
Cynthia Bebout on November 8, 1962. The couple had one daughter,
Maximillia (1963–2006), before divorcing in 1986. On February 11,
1989, he married actress Brenda King, with whom he had a son,
Christian Scheider, and adopted a daughter, Molly. They remained
married until his death. Death In 2004, Scheider was found to have
multiple myeloma, and he received a bone marrow transplant to treat
the cancer in June 2005. He died on February 10, 2008, in Little
Rock, Arkansas, at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences
Hospital. After Scheider's death a biography entitled Roy Scheider:
A Life was released as a tribute, compiling reviews, essays, and
narration on his life and career. Filmography Film